SEASON 4 GUESTS
Erica Castro is a Xicana English high school teacher who has taught for twenty-seven years. She has dedicated herself to publishing student work. She published the Oracle school anthology, and she has recently launched Daxson Publishing to publish marginalized voices.
Connect with Erica:
Instagram: erica_lopez74; daxsonpublishing
I am a multidisciplinary artist who uses video, poetry, performance and publication to discuss topics ranging from artistic collaboration, feminist identity, poverty and power, and the environment. My work defies conventional boundaries, transforming art into immersive experiences that challenge and engage an audience.
I have a background in method acting, which brings a unique approach to my process and work. This background leads me to methodically dive into a variety of subjects, channeling emotions and experiences, and working to authentically portray them through performance, video, poetry and prose.
I conduct extensive research to delve into the lives and stories of my subjects, seeking a deep understanding that enables me to create art that not only showcases technical skills but also elicits a visceral response from the viewer.
Click the photo to learn more about Nicelle Davis.
Colette Freedman (@ colettefreedman) is a novelist, playwright, dramaturge and screenwriter. Her plays and musicals have been done all over the world, including Serial Killer Barbie and Sister Cities, (Jacki Weaver, Alfred Molina, Stana Katic, Jess Weixler). She has produced a number of films and written several indie gems including And Then There Was Eve which won The Los Angeles Film Festival and is distributed with Breaking Glass Pictures. She co-produced the film Quality Problems, which has won several of awards, and is distributed with Freestyle Media and can be seen on iTunes and Amazon. Currently, she is in post production for her coming of age film Miles Underwater and her film 7,000 Miles (Wendie Malick) is on the festival circuit. A top Hollywood script doctor and ghostwriter, Colette is also the Dramatic Writing Program Officer at Antioch University and faculty member at NYFA, and Studio Arts where she teaches screenwriting, playwriting and novel writing.
Click link to learn more about Colette Freedman.
Born in Piedras Negras, Coahuila, Mexico and raised in Eagle Pass, Texas, Guadalupe García McCall is the award-winning author of several young adult novels, some short stories for adults, and many children’s poems. Guadalupe has received the Prestigious Pura Belpre Award, a Westchester Young Adult Fiction Award, the Tomás Rivera Mexican-American Children’s Book Award, and was a finalist for the William C. Morris Award and the Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy, among many other accolades.
Fluent in both English and Spanish, Guadalupe is a compelling speaker who has visited many middle schools, high schools, universities, festivals, conferences, and organizations all over the country. In 2016, she was invited to give a writing workshop and a keynote address at the Sirens Women In Fantasy Conference. In the spring of 2017, Guadalupe was selected as the Inaugural Artist in Residence by the Arne Nixon Center where she visited local high schools and taught courses at California State University Fresno. Also in 2017, Guadalupe gave the keynote for the National Latino Children’s Literature Conference in San Antonio, Texas. In 2018, she gave the keynote at the Texas Council of Teachers of English Language Arts Conference in Galveston, Texas. In 2021, Guadalupe had the honor of moderating the panel, Hispanic Heritage Month Authors Series, Celebrating Latino Experience, History, People, & Cultures, US Department of Education’s Office of English Language Acquisition (OELA with the White House Initiative on Advancing Education, Equity, Excellence and Economic Opportunity (WHIAEEEE), Washington DC. However, her proudest distinction came when her alma mater, Sul Ross State University (SRSU), selected to feature her image and biography on their Living the Dream II – Cultural Pride on Campus mural outside of the Gallego Center.
Click here to go to Guadalupe Garcia McCall's website.
Jo Scott-Coe is a writer, speaker, teacher, and researcher in Southern California. She is the author of three nonfiction books exploring the intersections of private and public violence: Teacher at Point Blank; MASS: A Sniper, a Father, and a Priest; and most recently, Unheard Witness: The Life and Death of Kathy Leissner Whitman. Her writing has appeared in many venues including TIME and Salon, Catapult, Fourth Genre, Tahoma Literary Review, The Press Enterprise, and The Los Angeles Times. Jo is a professor of English at Riverside City College, where she was honored as 57th Annual Distinguished Faculty Lecturer for her groundbreaking archival research documenting histories of abuse that preceded the 1966 mass shooting at UT Austin. She has broad experience speaking with diverse civic, community, activist, faith-based, and college-university organizations.
Interdisciplinary artist, Austin Alexander, is an award-winning poet laureate of Maui, best known for representing the kingdom of Hawaii at the 2010 Individual World Poetry Slam.
Presently, he resides in Los Angeles, primarily working as a screenwriter & producer in partnership with best-selling poet/multi-hyphenate, Saul Williams, and screenwriter/producer Gary Goldman - Minority Report, Total Recall, Big Trouble in Little China, Basic Instinct, etc.
As a recording and performance artist, he is currently producing a scored work of poetry with composer, Pedro Osuna, (No Time to Die, Argentina 1985, etc.) and world-renowned Hans Zimmer solo cellist, SUVVI.
As a rapper, Austin has shared the stage with hip-hop artists such as Grouch, Eligh, Scarub, and Luckyiam (of Living Legends), Zion I, Abstract Rude, Myka 9, Aceyalone, Haiku d'Etet, Jennifer Johns, Angelo Moore (of Fishbone) and many more.
As an educator, he has lectured at the University of Hawaii and taught classes on poetry & creative writing at Montessori and King Kekaulike High School on the island of Maui.
Click photo to learn more about Austin Alexander.
Reyna Grande is an award winning author of the bestselling memoirs, The Distance Between Us (Atria, 2012) and A Dream Called Home (Atria, 2018), where she writes about her life before and after she arrived in the United States from Mexico as an undocumented child immigrant.
For more on Reyna Grande, click this link to her website.
Or go to my Substack and Spotify pages on byginaduran.org for links to this episode.
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